Pages

Friday, July 14, 2006

United for Washington: the new business political party

An interesting note on Andrew's and Dennis' posts the last couple of days on the "Walking for Washington" program. I googled Walking for Washington, and came up with a group called United for Washington. In addition to the BIAW, the Faith and Freedom network, and others, UfW is behind the WfW program.

At first they seem like a 527 type group or a PAC. Taking money in and then spreading it to their favorite (business of course) type political causes. But, if you go to the their "vision" website, you see they have a much grander scheme for things (emphasis mine):

United for Washington has the leadership and vision to build a pro-business political campaigning infrastructure-- working with private sector partners and business oriented organizations and associations, United for Washington recognizes that the business coalition is the new political party and encourages business owners and CEOÂs to lead politically engaged companies:

Where the exclusive focus is business competitiveness;

Where business candidates are identified, recruited and trained and;

Where opportunities, responsibilities and resources are shared statewide.

And if that wasn't clear enough for you, this is right next to that:

The Business Coalition is the new Political Party

No kidding. No Democrats, no Republicans. Not even our nice, civil libertarians. Certainly not the Greens. But, rather businesss is the political party.

I'd be naivee to think that business hasn't been involved in politics since ever, but to come out and say in such strong terms that it isn't about participating in existing political structures.

They're not interested in electing a few conservatives to the Washington state Supreme Court. They aren't interested in a few candidates for the King County Council or even lobbying for some new laws. They want to change politics, they want a business party.